Ex-Commissioner gets 11 years: 'I stand before you a disgraced man'

Former Cook County Commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno, left, and his wife, Nancy, leave court after he was sentenced to 11 years on corruption charges. (Terrence Antonio James, Chicago Tribune)

A former Cook County commissioner recorded by federal agents telling a businessman he wanted to get “fat” on kickbacks was sentenced to 11 years in prison Wednesday by a judge who noted the brazenness of Joseph Mario Moreno’s bribery schemes.

Moreno, 61, had a rags-to-riches story as one of four children raised in the Back of the Yards neighborhood by a mother who worked two jobs to keep food on the table after his father died in a work-related accident. Moreno built a law practice, was elected to the Cook County Board in 1994 and eventually earned more than $200,000 a year, lived in a million-dollar home and owned vacation property in Mexico.

But on Wednesday prosecutors it wasn’t enough.

Prosecutors alleged that Moreno launched at least nine schemes to enrich himself at the expense of taxpayers, the county’s healthcare system and even his own children in the three years before he left office in 2010.

In one undercover recording, Moreno delivered an infamous quote as he discussed a scheme in which he agreed to take $5,000 and 10 percent of the revenue generated from a planned waste transfer station in Cicero in exchange for his support.

“I don't want to be a hog; I just want to be a pig,” said Moreno, then a volunteer member of the town’s economic development panel. “Hogs get slaughtered; pigs get fat.”

U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman said Moreno had engaged “with gusto” in “unapologetic corruption.”

“There were so many schemes,” Feinerman said. “The conduct was so brazen. It was not an aberration. It was standard operating procedure.”

Moreno stood in front of a courtroom full of family, friends and allies and asked his attorney to read a three-page letter he wrote the judge.

He maintained he had served “honorably” for most of his career but then made “bad choices” about who he associated with and was “surrounded by constant temptation.”

“Although hard to admit that I didn’t know the difference, I now know that what I regarded as ‘politics as usual’ were illegal acts,” the statement said. “Regretfully I became a willing participant in this culture. As the government’s recordings demonstrate, people wanted something from me all of the time.”

“I suffered from the flawed traits of excess pride, greed, selfishness and a sense of invincibility,” he wrote.

Saying that “I stand before you a disgraced man,” Moreno asked other corrupt Illinois politicians ake note of his fate and realize “it’s not worth it.”